Haruka Watanabe

Name: Haruka Watanabe

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Grade: 12

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Reading, volunteering at local animal shelters, doodling, soap operas

Appearance: Haruka is a tiny thing that stands at the monstrous height of 4'9” and weighs a grand total of 101 lbs— around the average weight for someone of her stature. She has no muscle to speak of nor any breasts either. What little fat she does have is found in her thighs, causing an almost nonexistent curve near her hips. Haruka has a very pale complexion overall, but her cheeks are constantly flushed like she is perpetually embarrassed. Her face is round with a small, button nose to accentuate her childlike features. To add to this, she has moderately thin lips that are in a permanent pout. She has dark eyes and thick eyelashes that would highlight them if they weren't covered by her bangs. Her dense, dark hair hangs a little past her shoulder blades and curls slightly inward though it's impossible to tell as she almost always has her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail or, more often, pigtails.

While she typically wears whatever she can find that might be clean that day, her clothing of choice is anything that fits loosely around her, particularly t-shirts, sweaters, or knee-length skirts. Anything shorter than her knees is considered too showy for the small girl yet she refuses to wear jeans as they're “too uncomfortable” for her tastes. Her shoes vary with the time of season; during the summer she wears mainly multicolored flip-flops, and during the winter she wears snow boots or flats.

Haruka's posture isn't horrible, but it isn't what one would call good either; she stands with her shoulders considerably slumped and her weight shifted to her right leg. She has a habit of chewing on her thumb when she's thinking, upset, or downright bored, so this can also be seen frequently.

Biography: Haruka was born in Sapporo, Hokkaido to parents Katsuko and Taro Watanabe, a pediatrician and a renowned general surgeon. Being born into a family of successful doctors, lawyers, and the like, Haruka's parents already had high expectations for the small girl. These expectations would soon be crushed for as Haruka got older, her parents found that she was a lot different than the other children around her; by the age of three she still wasn't talking, she liked drawing and doing things by herself rather than playing with other kids her age, and she was incredibly shy. Haruka's parents, obviously not pleased with the way their daughter was turning out, took the initiative to get her into speech therapy and forced her to play with other kids, much to Haruka's distaste. Eventually she started to come out of her shell and even began speaking, but even this wasn't good enough for Taro and Katsuko. Their daughter was finally talking but she did so with a stutter. When Haruka was finally old enough to understand her parent's disappointment, she forced herself to do better in school and while she was never at the top of her grade, in her mind, she did well enough.

When Haruka finally got to where she needed to be concerning both school and family, her father, Taro, was offered a job in America and, naturally, he took it. A little more than a year later, when Haruka was nine, her small family packed up and moved to Minnesota where Haruka was forced to adapt to a completely new environment. One of the first things Haruka struggled with in the short time she was there was English, which she knew very little of. Her entire fourth grade year was spent being home schooled and learning English, which still was less than perfect when she was finally moved to a real school. Once again Haruka was the shy girl she was when she was younger; she kept to herself and hardly socialized. Everything was about grades and bettering her English.

Around this time, things at home took a nosedive. Her parents, who were not only having a difficult time adapting to the many changes made to their jobs, were quickly becoming impatient with their daughter. Simple scoldings turned into beatings and Haruka, to escape it all, further pushed herself in school. However, this wasn't easy. With all the discouragement she was getting with her parents, she found it harder to get involved with many things. While she didn't completely hate her parents for it since she had been dealing with scoldings her entire life, she felt that she disappointed them rather than the other way around. In other words, she felt guilty for not working harder. Her social life in school diminished; she kept away from the other students and talked to practically no one. Life was all about school work, nothing else. Slowly but surely the beatings stopped, eventually coming to a halt and soon Haruka's life started to even out. Eventually, Haruka found herself doing well in school and at home as well. When Haruka finally reached high school, two or so years after problems at home stopped, she became more outgoing and made a few close friends. It was then that she finally found her passion in life: animals. She often found herself away from home and volunteering at the multiple animal shelters around town, especially during the summer. Meanwhile, her life at home remained at a constant good and Haruka finally got her life under her control.

Even now Haruka is still quiet but not painstakingly so. She continues to struggle with that stutter of hers; she now only stutters her “w”s, “t”s, and “s”s. When meeting a new person, she tends to only speak if spoken to, but the more she talks to them, the more open she'll be. On the other hand, Haruka dislikes people that talk too much; to her, they are completely self-centered. She hates clothes that reveal too much skin and has a crippling fear of needles. She likes things such as reading (especially romance novels), spending time outside in a nice patch of shade, and, of course, animals. Sports are most certainly not her thing though she enjoys watching basketball and hockey. While she doesn't have the most interesting things to do in her spare time, she enjoys watching soap operas and doodling. With soap operas, she likes being able to put herself in a character's shoes and imagine what they are thinking. This is a way for her to escape reality. Haruka also enjoys doodling, though she is nowhere near good, and she realizes this. She likes to think she is though.

Advantages: Haruka is very small, as odd as this sounds; if hide-and-go-seek was in the Olympics, she would most definitely qualify. She can run pretty fast but only for short periods of time as her body can't handle long distance runs. {C}Disadvantages: For one, she hasn't the slightest clue how to wield any type of weapon. She tends to overreact to things which always manages to get her into some sort of trouble. Her common sense is lacking and, without anyone to guide her through difficult situations, she is completely lost.

Designated Number: Female student no. 112

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Designated Weapon: Oar

Conclusion: Well, unless she can disable her collar, build a raft, and row her way to shore, G112 is a total write off. She may last a while, sure, but hiding's hardly interesting. Maybe she'll at least flip out. That would be funny for at least a couple of seconds.

'The above biography is as written by tinytomato. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: tinytomato

Kills: None

Killed By: Clio Gabriella

Collected Weapons: Oar (assigned weapon, to Feo Smith)

Allies: Duncan McMahon, Craig Hoyle

Enemies: Feo Smith, Clio Gabriella, Maxwell Lombardi

Mid-game Evaluation: Haruka awoke in a overgrown field with a headache. Realizing she was in SOTF, she soon retreated to the tunnels underground in an attempt to remain hidden. After an indeterminate amount of time spent there, she saw a light down one of the tunnels. She made her way toward it, clutching the oar that was her assigned weapon. There she met Duncan McMahon, who told her he and his companions weren't playing. Although he was armed with a homemade sharpened stick, he dropped it to appear less threatening. This move wasn't much comfort to Haruka, and she took off running down the tunnels in the opposite direction.

Haruka tripped while running away from Duncan and fell to the tunnel floor. As it turned out she'd collided with Frankie Fiametta, who had little patience for Haruka's subsequent wailing and professions that she didn't want to die. Liz Polanski witnessed the scene and intervened on Haruka's behalf. Liz shoved Frankie away from Haruka and demonstrated to Haruka that she wasn't holding her knife, having sheathed it. Meanwhile, Duncan was close enough to see all this transpire, and his interest drew the attention of his companions Ethan Kentand Feo Smith. Duncan was sympathetic to Haruka, not having intended to scare her, and his relatively kind posture (and lack of a bladed weapon) made him her choice of refuge; Haruka dropped the oar she'd been clutching and ran to hide behind him. Feo Smith promptly claimed the discarded weapon.

As Liz began writing about her plans to disrupt the terrorists' plans on the tunnel wall, Haruka took stock of the people around her. Concluding that they'd all been involved in more violence than she was comfortable with, Haruka took the opening the other students' interest in Liz's plan provided and scurried away to find a way out of the tunnels.

Haruka made her way out of the tunnels into the woods. Moving through the vegetation left her scratched and bruised, but she emerged in the residential area, by the town center. She collapsed in a flowerbed and slept, waking at the start of the announcements but missing some of the information in her foggy state. Upon sitting up she saw Trent Savage and Craig Hoylenearby. Although her initial impulse was to panic, she decided to wait and see if they meant her harm. Trent spied her in the flowers and alerted Craig, who came over to investigate. Craig was friendly, and Haruka accepted his offer to rest with him and Trent. Shortly thereafter David Meramac arrived, followed by Nik Kronwalland Fiona Sparki. The arrival of so many unknown people unnerved Haruka, who figured that any of them could become violent.

Craig had heard the Kronwall name on the announcements as belonging to a killer, and so he asked Nik to leave the area. Nik took offense at Craig's judgment and became angry and agitated, ultimately waving a gun around before asking to be allowed to leave the area unmolested. Trent saw the threat to Craig and acted, attacking with his club. Nik defended himself, using his own gun as a club and knocking Trent down. Fiona had hung back and didn't intervene. Trent on the other hand restrained Nik by pinning his arms behind his back, telling the rest of the students to run away. Haruka, screaming, prepared to do so. Nik broke free of Craig's hold and went for his pistol. With Craig reeling from Nik's blows, he fell on top of Nik and was shot when Nik accidentally squeezed the trigger. Although Nik was immediately remorseful and attempted to save Craig, the shot was lethal. Haruka evaluated the scene and attempted to wake Trent, who had been knocked unconscious by Nik's intial counterattack. Duncan and David pulled him away from her, picking Trent up and running to parts unknown.

Haruka attempted to follow the trio of boys, but she realized she couldn't keep pace with them and so returned to the town center. There she found Craig Hoyle's body joined by that of Owen Rothschild's. Leaving the scene, she wandered until she found herself outside the mansion. While initially hesitant, she opened the door and went inside to look for supplies. In exploring the house she ended up outside the bedroom where Maxwell Lombardiand Clio Gabriella were becoming...better acquainted. Suddenly Clio popped out of the room, firing a gun a Haruka. A shot hit Haruka in the shoulder, and she fell to the floor. Knowing that there was no help in the vicinity, she forced herself to get up and attempt to run away. She dragged herself up to the attic, Clio and Maxwell in pursuit. Eventually Haruka ran out of space, ending up near a long drop to the outside. She tried to mount an attack even in her weakened state, but Clio pulled a sai and repeatedly stabbed Haruka in the stomach before pushing her out of the house to fall a considerable distance. While her wounds were undoubtedly fatal, the long fall killed her.

Post-Game Evaluation: I'd say she was a waste of space, but she didn't take up all that much anyways. Too bad her fight or flight instinct didn't really kick in. Well, I guess you could say the flight part was activated at the end...

Memorable Quotes: “I d-don’t wanna d-d-die." Haruka in the tunnels, after colliding with Frankie

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Haruka, in chronological order.

Pre-Game:
 * Bartenders should be banned from watching TV

V4:
 * The Man-slut, the Cock-tease and The Lover
 * Fountain of Youth
 * Out and In (Content Warning)

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Haruka Watanabe. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * I liked that Haruka really did stay a quiet, terrified girl who wanted to hide from everything. She wasn't exactly dynamic, and didn't have that much of a story, but she had good writing and added some fun realism to the game. Not everyone makes a splash, and Haruka flew under the radar with real style. - MurderWeasel